Women's Minyan (10 page)

MALE VOICE
: A group of ten men of Israel, over the age of thirteen, are a “congregation”, a society, a
minyan
for the purposes of public prayer or other holy activities. Even if one hundred women pray together, they have no authority to perform a sacred act. They may not publicly declare God’s Oneness. They may not lead the congregation in prayer. They may not perform the Priestly blessing, or a public reading of the Torah or of the Prophets. They may not convene a public event or a council. They may not publicly comfort the mourner or bless the bridegroom or say grace after meals because, as it is written: “I will be blessed amongst the Children of Israel,” and throughout the entire Torah, the “Children of Israel” refers to free, male adults. A woman is a
golem
, a lump of clay, without stature, who cannot make a covenant with God, and therefore, cannot join a
minyan.

CHANA
: [
fighting back, with prayer.
] To You, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. In You, O God, have I put my trust; do not let me be deceived. Do not let my enemies triumph. Let me find my way in Your truth. Teach me, for You are the God of my salvation, and it is for You I wait all day.

MALE VOICE
: “Even at a time of affliction for Israel, when individuals abandon the congregation, and doom themselves to hell, even at such a time women may not join a
minyan
to make up ten; even one woman with nine men. A woman does not join a
minyan
even for the purpose of witnessing a public display of martyrdom to sanctify the Holy Name. A woman may not judge, or be a witness. Gentiles, slaves, women, fools, and children are ineligible to give testimony. Women are not called a congregation.”

CHANA
: [
escalating the battle.
] Behold my enemies, how many they are and how they hate me. Watch over my soul and save me from them, let me not be ashamed that I have trusted in You. Innocence and righteousness will preserve me, for I have put my trust in You.

MALE VOICE
: [
beginning to capitulate.
] But ten women can gather together unto themselves for public service, or to read the Scroll of Esther on Purim. Ten women are considered a congregation for lighting candles, for drinking four cups of wine on Passover, and eating bitter herbs. Ten women are a congregation for the purpose of reconciling a man to his enemy.

CHANA
: [
her prayers partially answered
.] He guides the humble through judgment, and teaches the humble His way. Thus all the paths of the Lord are full of truth and loving-kindness to those who keep His Covenant. For the sake of Your name, Lord, pardon my iniquity. Troubles have already enlarged my heart—Oh lead me out of my affliction…For Your mercy is before my eyes and I have earnestly walked in your truth.

SHAINE RUTH
: Talk to us,
Ima
! Tell us what happened!

BLUMA
: Why did you leave us?

CHANA
’S
inner monologue, begun as prayer, transforms into confession. To
BLUMA, SHAINE RUTH
.

CHANA
: [
looking around at the house, as if in a dream
.] Twenty years of my life I gave to this house, hour by hour, day by day. To build something harmonious and good. For twenty years I held my finger in the dike, to keep the horror around me from flooding through. You never saw, never even suspected. But even a sponge gets full, so full it cannot hold another drop….

The woman who ran away two years ago was not the mother you knew…. It had nothing to do with you, my innocent children…The dam finally broke.

CHANA
: I could have cowered—as always—allowed myself to drown. But for some reason, I stood up. A strong urge to live gave me strength I didn’t know I had. I turned my back on everything and ran for my life. Only later did the mind wake up, with regrets, pangs of conscience, longings—

FRUME
: Who were you running away from?

ADINA
: Who was chasing you?

GITTE LEAH
: Stories.

TOVAH
: You left for her. [
points to
ZEHAVA
.]

ETA
: Everyone knows.

ZEHAVA
: Not one of you knows anything! You swore to listen, so listen!

CHANA
: [
focused on her daughters.
] Blumaleh, Shaine Ruth, when I left I never dreamt that it would end this way. The minute I could, I tried to settle everything quickly and quietly so I could come home to you—my children. But you [
pointing to
FRUME
.] all of you, blocked my way. The family, the community, my friends [
looking at
ETA
and
TOVAH
.] you all stood together against me as I smashed myself again and again against the walls of your hard, cold hearts…

SHEINHOFF
: Chana, you gave us no other choice…

FRUME
: You left.

GITTE LEAH
: It’s your own fault.

CHANA
: [
bitterly
.] I thought so, too. I tried to figure out where I had gone wrong…what had happened to my marriage and why. It didn’t start out bad…. [
looking at her girls.
]
.

GITTE LEAH
: Not bad?! Why you ungrateful woman! You didn’t deserve a man like Yankele.

FRUME
: It was a miracle, such a match: a Talmud scholar, from a most respected family…

GITTE LEAH
: His father was an
ADMOR
…

TOVAH
: And his Uncle, Rav Aaron, was on the Council of Torah Sages—

ETA
:—and the head of a Yeshiva—
A Grosse Yichoos!
(a great honor).

CHANA
: Yes, Yankele was a gift. A match made in heaven…. by accident. I knocked on the wrong door and he opened it. Right after he saw me, he sent matchmakers to talk to my father. You were all so shocked. That such a family would want me! You never dreamed of looking into the background of the distinguished bridegroom. Who was I, after all? The despised failure. My sister was already burning to fix me up with a fat, newly religious Jew, with hairy knuckles and a bald head….

FRUME
: She was burning because you’d defiled your honor…

GITTE LEAH
: With a soldier! What a disgrace!

ETA
: [
scandalized
.]
Vus!?
(what) She was defiled?

TOVAH
: By a soldier!!!?

GITTE LEAH
: A soldier she met with all her running around. [
to
CHANA
] You swore to tell the truth, so tell it!

CHANA
: [
with sarcasm
.]
A
soldier? Why not the whole platoon? The entire army? [
to everyone, bitterly.
] The truth was, a miracle happened. I was defiled by a letter.

GITTE LEAH
: [
to everyone, disgusted
.] Aren’t you ashamed to speak like that?! [
to all.
] Under my roof, she got a letter from a soldier. An envelope from the army came to the house of the
ADMOR
!

CHANA
: [
dripping with sarcasm.
] God save us! With an official army stamp which proved—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Chana had committed a mortal sin. Who cared that inside the envelope was a scientific paper? Or that it was from a soldier who started to speak to me on a train to Haifa because he’d never in his life spoken to a religious girl before? When I told him I was interested in science too, that I was reading books underneath my blanket at night because the
ADMOR
—your husband—didn’t approve of secular studies for girls.

GITTE LEAH
: Profanity, that’s what you brought into the house of the saintly
ADMOR
. Filth.

CHANA
: [
patiently.
]—the soldier told me he was working on a project to turn salt water into drinking water, and offered to send me his paper on the subject…

GITTE LEAH
: When a woman opens her mind, a lot of garbage gets thrown in….

CHANA
: You can’t really believe that, Gitte Leah. You’re just jealous that I had the courage to use the brain that the Holy One, Blessed be He, gave me.

GITTE LEAH
: Did you want my husband—the
ADMOR
—to find the letter? Was that it? You knew how he made my life hell with all his stringencies. Did you want to ruin my marriage completely?

CHANA
: All you had to do was ask me. Instead, you started screaming and ran off with the envelope to Madame…. [
to everyone.
] who immediately called a meeting of the family council of geniuses and holy men…. And they decided that there was nothing left to do but marry the sinner off—and fast. So, after I refused my sister’s hairy fat candidate, Madame dredged up a hairless skinny one, with pale clammy skin and a wispy beard, that knew all about the world from what he read in the Kosher Food Bulletin, if he read at all…

FRUME
: [
entering the circle, turning alternately to
CHANA
and the
WOMEN
.] Ah, so the sought-after prize of Meah Shearim said no. The matchmakers’ dream girl refused. The whole family was wrong, the whole ultra-Orthodox world was wrong, only she was right. Just like now. Leaving her husband and children is only her latest sin….

GITTE LEAH
: Don’t overstrain yourself, Mother.

FRUME
: You don’t know what it was like to raise such a rebellious child! [
to
CHANA
] Tell them, everything, from the beginning, the whole truth: How you were wild and full of
chutzpah
; how you did everything that came into your head. Tell them how you lied right and left, tell them how you stole!

ETA
and
TOVAH
: [
shocked.
] A thief? A
ganeveta?
(thief)
May God watch over us!

CHANA
: [
sadly ironic
.] Yes, I admit it. I stole. [
beat.
] A handful of raisins from a jar that Madame kept on a shelf above
my
bed, specially for Gitte Leah, her favorite.

GITTE LEAH
: It wasn’t only my raisins—

CHANA
: Still the same sniveling, sanctimonious tattletale…! Yes, I admit it. I also stole money from Madame’s purse. Some pennies to buy lollipops. I was four and already corrupt…

CHANA
collapses.
ZEHAVA
hurries to help her.

SHAINE RUTH
:
Ima
,
Ima
[
BLUMA
checks her
.]

FRUME
: “He who spares the rod, hates his child.” My own mother threw me into an orphanage when she was widowed, but I put my whole life into this child. To change her from a weakwilled thief into a strong, honest, decent…. But in the end it was no use. Just like my own mother, she also threw away her children because she thought only of herself…. [
to
CHANA
.] A child is not a suitcase that you leave behind and come back for when you feel like it.

SHEINHOFF
: May Hashem watch over us. Frume!

FRUME
: [
furious.
] Everything she was taught she had to question. “Why can’t I go to a school that prepares for matriculation exams?” Imagine, going to college, a religious girl! “Why do men thank God for not making them a woman?” Always, she had to be smarter than everybody else. So smart she was she couldn’t find her way to the bathroom at night. [
to
CHANA
.] You swore to tell the truth, so tell them how you wet the bed until you were practically Bat Mitzvah….

CHANA
: [
supported by
ZEHAVA
.] Was it any wonder after all those beatings? Lying in bed, afraid more would come. And they came, the beatings…even though I washed your floors, and polished your silver, and peeled your potatoes to win your love—all I ever got was the belt.

ADINA
: What cruelty!

CHANA
: No, Adina. Cruelty is when you take a child’s hand [
takes
FRUME
’s
hand
] and lead her out into the street in her soaked nightgown, stopping neighbors to complain how stupid she is, and how wonderful her older sister is. [
she looks down at her hand.
] While the child stands there, trying to convince herself she’s a piece of wood, without ears or eyes or a heart….